Graduation speech

[chauncy republicans]

Story published May 20, 2003
LOCAL NEWS: Rockford
Text of the Rockford College graduation speech by Chris Hedges

I want to speak to you today about war and empire.

Killing, or at least the worst of it, is over in Iraq. Although blood will continue to spill -- theirs and ours -- be prepared for this. For we are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige, power, and security. But this will come later as our empire expands and in all this we become pariahs, tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. Isolation always impairs judgment and we are very isolated now.
We have forfeited the good will, the empathy the world felt for us after 9-11. We have folded in on ourselves, we have severely weakened the delicate international coalitions and alliances that are vital in maintaining and promoting peace and we are part now of a dubious troika in the war against terror with Vladimir Putin and Ariel Sharon, two leaders who do not shrink in Palestine or Chechnya from carrying out acts of gratuitous and senseless acts of violence. We have become the company we keep.

The censure and perhaps the rage of much of the world, certainly one-fifth of the world's population which is Muslim, most of whom I'll remind you are not Arab, is upon us. Look today at the 14 people killed last night in several explosions in Casablanca. And this rage in a world where almost 50 percent of the planet struggles on less than two dollars a day will see us targeted. Terrorism will become a way of life, and when we are attacked we will, like our allies Putin and Sharon, lash out with greater fury. The circle of violence is a death spiral; no one escapes. We are spinning at a speed that we may not be able to hold. As we revel in our military prowess -- the sophistication of our military hardware and technology, for this is what most of the press coverage consisted of in Iraq -- we lose sight of the fact that just because we have the capacity to wage war it does not give us the right to wage war. This capacity has doomed empires in the past.

"Modern western civilization may perish," the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr warned, "because it falsely worshiped technology as a final good."

The real injustices, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the brutal and corrupt dictatorships we fund in the Middle East, will mean that we will not rid the extremists who hate us with bombs. Indeed we will swell their ranks. Once you master people by force you depend on force for control. In your isolation you begin to make mistakes.

Fear engenders cruelty; cruelty, fear, insanity, and then paralysis. In the center of Dante's circle the damned remained motionless. We have blundered into a nation we know little about and are caught between bitter rivalries and competing ethnic groups and leaders we do not understand. We are trying to transplant a modern system of politics invented in Europe characterized, among other things, by the division of earth into independent secular states based on national citizenship in a land where the belief in a secular civil government is an alien creed. Iraq was a cesspool for the British when they occupied it in 1917; it will be a cesspool for us as well. The curfews, the armed clashes with angry crowds that leave scores of Iraqi dead, the military governor, the Christian Evangelical groups who are being allowed to follow on the heels of our occupying troops to try and teach Muslims about Jesus.

Hedges stops speaking because of a disturbance in the audience. Rockford College President Paul Pribbenow takes the microphone.

"My friends, one of the wonders of a liberal arts college is its ability and its deeply held commitment to academic freedom and the decision to listen to each other's opinions. (Crowd Cheers) If you wish to protest the speaker's remarks, I ask that you do it in silence, as some of you are doing in the back. That is perfectly appropriate but he has the right to offer his opinion here and we would like him to continue his remarks. (Fog Horn Blows, some cheer).

The occupation of the oil fields, the notion of the Kurds and the Shiites will listen to the demands of a centralized government in Baghdad, the same Kurds and Shiites who died by the tens of thousands in defiance of Sadaam Hussein, a man who happily butchered all of those who challenged him, and this ethnic rivalry has not gone away. The looting of Baghdad, or let me say the looting of Baghdad with the exception of the oil ministry and the interior ministry -- the only two ministries we bothered protecting -- is self immolation.

As someone who knows Iraq, speaks Arabic, and spent seven years in the Middle East, if the Iraqis believe rightly or wrongly that we come only for oil and occupation, that will begin a long bloody war of attrition; it is how they drove the British out and remember that, when the Israelis invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, they were greeted by the dispossessed Shiites as liberators. But within a few months, when the Shiites saw that the Israelis had come not as liberators but occupiers, they began to kill them. It was Israel who created Hezbollah and was Hezbollah that pushed Israel out of Southern Lebanon.

As William Butler Yeats wrote in "Meditations in Times Of Civil War," "We had fed the heart on fantasies / the hearts grown brutal from the fair."

This is a war of liberation in Iraq, but it is a war now of liberation by Iraqis from American occupation. And if you watch closely what is happening in Iraq, if you can see it through the abysmal coverage, you can see it in the lashing out of the terrorist death squads, the murder of Shiite leaders in mosques, and the assassination of our young soldiers in the streets. It is one that will soon be joined by Islamic radicals and we are far less secure today than we were before we bumbled into Iraq.

We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them. For war in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics. Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides' history. Read how Athens' expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself.

This, Thucydides wrote, is what doomed Athenian democracy; Athens destroyed itself. For the instrument of empire is war and war is a poison, a poison which at times we must ingest just as a cancer patient must ingest a poison to survive. But if we do not understand the poison of war -- if we do not understand how deadly that poison is -- it can kill us just as surely as the disease.

We have lost touch with the essence of war. Following our defeat in Vietnam we became a better nation. We were humbled, even humiliated. We asked questions about ourselves we had not asked before.

We were forced to see ourselves as others saw us and the sight was not always a pretty one. We were forced to confront our own capacity for a atrocity -- for evil -- and in this we understood not only war but more about ourselves. But that humility is gone.

War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press -- remember in wartime the press is always part of the problem -- have turned war into a vast video arcade came. Its very essence -- death -- is hidden from public view.

There was no more candor in the Persian Gulf War or the War in Afghanistan or the War in Iraq than there was in Vietnam. But in the age of live feeds and satellite television, the state and the military have perfected the appearance of candor.

Because we no longer understand war, we no longer understand that it can all go horribly wrong. We no longer understand that war begins by calling for the annihilation of others but ends if we do not know when to make or maintain peace with self-annihilation. We flirt, given the potency of modern weapons, with our own destruction.

The seduction of war is insidious because so much of what we are told about it is true -- it does create a feeling of comradeship which obliterates our alienation and makes us, for perhaps the only time of our life, feel we belong.

War allows us to rise above our small stations in life; we find nobility in a cause and feelings of selflessness and even bliss. And at a time of soaring deficits and financial scandals and the very deterioration of our domestic fabric, war is a fine diversion. War for those who enter into combat has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it the lust of the eye and warns believers against it. War gives us a distorted sense of self; it gives us meaning.

(A man in the audience says: "Can I say a few words here?" Hedges: Yeah, when I finish.)

Once in war, the conflict obliterates the past and the future all is one heady intoxicating present. You feel every heartbeat in war, colors are brighter, your mind races ahead of itself. (Confusion, microphone problems, etc.) We feel in wartime comradeship. (Boos) We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those who will insist that the comradeship of war is love -- the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war's intoxication.

Think back on the days after the attacks on 9-11. Suddenly we no longer felt alone; we connected with strangers, even with people we did not like. We felt we belonged, that we were somehow wrapped in the embrace of the nation, the community; in short, we no longer felt alienated.

As this feeling dissipated in the weeks after the attack, there was a kind of nostalgia for its warm glow and wartime always brings with it this comradeship, which is the opposite of friendship. Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship -- that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime -- is within our reach. We can all have comrades.

The danger of the external threat that comes when we have an enemy does not create friendship; it creates comradeship. And those in wartime are deceived about what they are undergoing. And this is why once the threat is over, once war ends, comrades again become strangers to us. This is why after war we fall into despair.

In friendship there is a deepening of our sense of self. We become, through the friend, more aware of who we are and what we are about; we find ourselves in the eyes of the friend. Friends probe and question and challenge each other to make each of us more complete; with comradeship, the kind that comes to us in patriotic fervor, there is a suppression of self-awareness, self-knowledge, and self-possession. Comrades lose their identities in wartime for the collective rush of a common cause -- a common purpose. In comradeship there are no demands on the self. This is part of its appeal and one of the reasons we miss it and seek to recreate it. Comradeship allows us to escape the demands on the self that is part of friendship.

In wartime when we feel threatened, we no longer face death alone but as a group, and this makes death easier to bear. We ennoble self-sacrifice for the other, for the comrade; in short we begin to worship death. And this is what the god of war demands of us.

Think finally of what it means to die for a friend. It is deliberate and painful; there is no ecstasy. For friends, dying is hard and bitter. The dialogue they have and cherish will perhaps never be recreated. Friends do not, the way comrades do, love death and sacrifice. To friends, the prospect of death is frightening. And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war. Thank you.

(Boos cheers, shouts, fog horns and the like)

[George W. Bush]

Wah wah war is bad. Let's have another 9/11. Let's allow hate to fester in the Middle East.

[chauncy republicans]

War is bad...I wouldnt expect you to know that though, seeing how I doubt you have ever experienced one.

[Flagg]

And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war. Thank you.

He's a genius...I'd like to nominate this wanker for the Nobel Peace Prize

Let's all now sing kumbaya...that'll solve everything

[Vance]

The real injustices, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land
I stopped reading there.

[ShotOver]

Why didnt someone just run up and drop him?

I would of... :bash:

[Fioraon]

"those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them."

yes, poor kids with no where to go, victims of uncle sam. rofl

[mocking_loudly_died]

I have a zit on the inside of my nose, man it hurts.

[shorty]

Yeah they do mocking! They suck more than this whole hippie graduation speech! :cantbeli:

[Elmo]

Excellent speech.

I would have liked to hear what kind of arguments the audience gave after the speech...I bet they only strenghtened the things said...without realizing it.

[HELEX]

Everything he said is true, so why dont you start thinking about your own opinion? Truth is most of all times between what you are thinking and what the others. An this makes your point of view at least questionable.

Where everybody thinks the same, nobody is thinking a lot..... :cantbeli:

[NcDeuce]

:bash:

[chauncy republicans]

Excellent speech.

I would have liked to hear what kind of arguments the audience gave after the speech...I bet they only strenghtened the things said...without realizing it.
The audience only bood till he left the stage. Kind of pathetic for a Liberal arts college.

[Elmo]

I think the man who gave our Graduation speech would love to have a few words with that douchebag.


Oh, you have to rely on the brass to do the talking? They are always right! And have uniforms! Fix bayonets! :D

[shorty]

Hey NcDeuce....I think everyone from Madisonville on up is stupid....Waitaminute! Northern Madisonville is stupid! Screw North, go Central! woot

[Elmo]

Yeah, and try to tell that to any one of the hundreds of people present at MSG Davis' funeral. Or how about SGT Svitak, SFC Petithory, SSG Prosser. Oh wait, this college grad from Illinois is a moron. I'm really sick of these dumbf*cks.

What is this logic? Once one of yours gets killed, the war can't be wrong?
Did you even read the speech?

[NcDeuce]

I think the man who gave our Graduation speech would love to have a few words with that douchebag.


Oh, you have to rely on the brass to do the talking? They are always right! And have uniforms! Fix bayonets! :D

No, I do not, you Finnish hippy. You probably didn't even know where the hell Rockford College was.

BTW, before you put down LTC X, a man who has seen more combat than anybody I have ever met...you ought to look up his credentials and set your shi* straight, ass.

[NcDeuce]

Yeah, and try to tell that to any one of the hundreds of people present at MSG Davis' funeral. Or how about SGT Svitak, SFC Petithory, SSG Prosser. Oh wait, this college grad from Illinois is a moron. I'm really sick of these dumbf*cks.

What is this logic? Once one of yours gets killed, the war can't be wrong?
Did you even read the speech?

Are you trying to tell me Operation Enduring Freedom is wrong? Yes, I read the speech. Do you even know which country these men I named fought in?

[chauncy republicans]

What country did they fight in?

[NcDeuce]

What country did they fight in?

http://www.starhq.com/html/obituaries/obituaries%20archive/01/120101.html

http://www.nightstalkers.com/enduring_freedom/memorial/sgt_svitak/index.html

http://www.groups.sfahq.com/5th/petithory_daniel_5sfg.htm

http://www.groups.sfahq.com/5th/prosser_brian_5sfg.htm

[Jack Mehoff]

"those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them."

Yeah, blame it on Uncle Sam you dumbass. Whoever wrote this needs to pull his head out of his asshole. If you want to distorted the truth, don't ****ing make it too obvious.

http://digilander.libero.it/milae76/Smilies/clapclap.gif

http://img21.photobucket.com/albums/v63/NastyBurger/oath.jpg

[Elmo]

No, I do not, you Finnish hippy. You probably didn't even know where the hell Rockford College was.

BTW, before you put down LTC Shaffer, a man who has seen more combat than anybody I have ever met...you ought to look up his credentials and set your shi* straight, ass.

Why would I need his credentials? He's a soldier, a trained killer.
I didn't put him down, I put you down for letting his image speak for yourself. I didn't see any arguments concerning the speech made by you.
Do you need his combat authority to back up your views?

What are you trying to say with the obituaries? That these men got killed?
The speech wasn't disrespectful to soldiers...only the attitude which led them to lose their life.

About OEF. Was it right? Or wrong? I don't know. Has it helped to reduce terrorism? Somewhat, but the reasons for it still exist.

[chauncy republicans]

I think the "we no longer understand war" bit was aimed at civilians not soldiers. I dont think the population understands war at all. Well, I quess dead soldiers mothers do, but aside from that civilians dont have a clue when it comes to war. Soldiers on the other hand... know all too well the consequence of war. They do not always know however, why they are fighting. I have seen many a morale broken due to the fact that someone thaught we there (Desert Storm) for humanitary reasons. In war compassion is weakness, know you are there to do a job and go back home. If you get some heroic idea in your head that your some "great liberator" odds are you are going to get a very unpleasant "wake up call."
Sure, it felt good as hell to see those kuwaitis in the streets, which is why many people enlist. So they can experience the many wonderful things that you can only experience as a soldier, but there are also many terrible things that you can only experience as a soldier. Which is something the media seems to overlook, causing many civilians to rush our armed services off to war. *note* A-stan is a major exception, we knew why we were there.

[chauncy republicans]

The speech wasn't disrespectful to soldiers...only the attitude which led them to lose their life.
Thats the way I saw it at least.

[chauncy republicans]

About OEF. Was it right? Or wrong? I don't know. Has it helped to reduce terrorism? Somewhat, but the reasons for it still exist.
I think it was wrong, Bush has no respect or care for those who serve this country. The whole story was so inconsistant first WMD, then they cant find WMD so the reason changes to helping the Iraqi's, and I almost forgot the whole... ties to terrorism. Documents show Iraq was on Bush's agenda even before Sept.11,2001. If anything it has escalated terrorism, by giving them (extremists) a tangable reason to hate the US, which would lead to new volunteers and the swelling of their ranks.

[Elmo]

OEF = Afghanistan
OIF= Iraq

I agree that Iraq invasion is FUBAR and the reasons for it fabricated.

[chauncy republicans]

Oops mistook the E for I

[HELEX]

So did any Iraqi ever attack the United States? No!

Many of the Terrorists came from your allies, like Saudi arabia.
The war in Iraq is a crime justified by nothing :roll:

[chauncy republicans]

So did any Iraqi ever attack the United States? No!

Many of the Terrorists came from your allies, like Saudi arabia.
The war in Iraq is a crime justified by nothing :roll:
Not to mention Central and South America. :)

[NcDeuce]

So did any Iraqi ever attack the United States? No!

Many of the Terrorists came from your allies, like Saudi arabia.
The war in Iraq is a crime justified by nothing :roll:

A nation does not have to be attacked in order for war to be justified.

http://digilander.libero.it/supcomandante/attaccoagliusa/victims/kurd.jpg
Graphic

Speaking of crimes, what do you call killing mass populations of Kurds?

[NcDeuce]

About OEF. Was it right? Or wrong? I don't know. Has it helped to reduce terrorism? Somewhat, but the reasons for it still exist.
I think it was wrong, Bush has no respect or care for those who serve this country.

Bush has no respect for the U.S. Armed Forces?

Whoa, whoa, whoa...slow your ass down Jane Fonda.

Our current President has visited Ft. Campbell, KY several times in the past few years spending time with soldiers from all the ranks and all the units. In Clinton's 8 years of office, I do not believe he has visited Ft. Campbell, KY.

Bush has visited Walter Reed on countless occasions without the CNN cameras and bright lights. When did Clinton ever do that? Let me think about that one, Clinton visited Walter Reed only after the Battle of the Black Sea. Who did he bring along? Camera crews. Who did Clinton give a phone call to a week later? Michael J. Durant, after he is released from the Somalis. Why did Clinton call? To congratulate and ask for him to come to the White House lawn? Can you say publicity stunt? Oh wait, my bad; Clinton was probably a good President in your eyes.

War is so bad and is never necessary, yeah you guys are so right.

[HELEX]

Speaking of crimes, what do you call killing mass populations of Kurds?

You mean the mass killings using american chemicals planned by using american satellite images? With americans thumbs up to do it?
And after that doubling import of iraqi oil to the united states?

You speaking of that? rofl rofl rofl rofl rofl

[Fox2]

You mean the mass killings using american chemicals planned by using american satellite images? With americans thumbs up to do it?
And after that doubling import of iraqi oil to the united states?

Got any proof of any of that? Why would America give Iraq satellite images of their own territory? :roll:

Spewing rhetoric is not going to change minds. Give us some proof, then we can have a good debate going. Although, I would say that debating the beginning of the war in Iraq is rather daft seeing as how it's in the past, and right now the focus should be on rebuilding the country and its people.

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

A nation does not have to be attacked in order for war to be justified.

Speaking of crimes, what do you call killing mass populations of Kurds?
It happened in March 1988 so it took a while for everyone to get their **** together and invade Iraq?:)
Iraq just got a slap on the wrist from the State Dept nothing more. It worth noting that Turkey has carried out operations against the Kurds do we invade them? :)
So we have invaded Iraq right reason or none we did it, I just hope we make a decent job in transforming them into democracy or at least something along democratic lines, I think we should forget the weak left wing protests about modern imperialism and the bleating right wingers banging on about doing the right thing.

[NcDeuce]

Speaking of crimes, what do you call killing mass populations of Kurds?

You mean the mass killings using american chemicals planned by using american satellite images? With americans thumbs up to do it?
And after that doubling import of iraqi oil to the united states?

You speaking of that? rofl rofl rofl rofl rofl

Show me facts to back that up.


All this is nothing novel and remains consistent with traditional policies. For example, in the early 1970s there was a Kurdish revolt supported by Iran - then ruled by the Shah. The purpose of the revolt as far as Iran and its American masters were concerned was simply to cause trouble for Iraq in accordance with strategic considerations - Iraq was not a U.S. ally at this time. In order to further its strategic interests the U.S. decided to help. The Pike Committee report has made clear that both the U.S. and its Iranian stooge of the time did not want the Kurds to win, and that the uprising was given limited support only to pressurise Iraq to settle a border issue concerning access to the Persian Gulf. Consequently, as soon as Iraq accepted Iranian demands, both Iran and the United States cancelled their support of the Kurdish uprising. A classified report by the House Select Committee on Intelligence that was leaked to the press clarified this matter, stating that U.S. officials:

“… hoped that our clients [the Kurds] would not prevail. They preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities sufficient to sap [Iraqi] resources... This policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue fighting. Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise.”[172]

It was in 1975 that aid to the Kurds was suddenly cut off, allowing Saddam to begin slaughtering them immediately. One thousand pesh merga fighters who had surrendered were shot down “in cold blood”, while another five thousand Kurdish women, children and elderly men were slaughtered as they attempted to flee the country.[173]

Western indifference to the slaughter of Kurds and people of other ethnicities in the non-Western world, is therefore a long-standing reality that continues to this day

These are facts supported by the U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on Intelligence, 19 January 1976 (Pike Report). Cited in Village Voice, 16 February 1976. Also see Safire, William, Safire’s Washington, New York, Times Books, 1980, p. 333. and al-Khalil, Samir, Republic of Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam’s Iraq, University of California Press, Berkely, 1989, p. 23.

I didn't see any of the Western nations stepping out...

[Sleeping Sun]

A nation does not have to be attacked in order for war to be justified.
http://digilander.libero.it/supcomandante/attaccoagliusa/victims/kurd.jpg
Graphic
Speaking of crimes, what do you call killing mass populations of Kurds?

Aaah... Wouldn't it be great if there still were noble people in the world who would go and unselfishly fight and die just for the freedom of perfect strangers?!

[NcDeuce]

A nation does not have to be attacked in order for war to be justified.
http://digilander.libero.it/supcomandante/attaccoagliusa/victims/kurd.jpg
Graphic
Speaking of crimes, what do you call killing mass populations of Kurds?

Aaah... Wouldn't it be great if there still were noble people in the world who would go and unselfishly fight and die just for the freedom of perfect strangers?!

http://www.ranger.org/images/photoGallery/2002/Anderson_Funeral.jpg

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1161757.jpg

There are still noble people willing to put that uniform on and defend the freedom of total strangers.

[HELEX]

Fox2 asked:


Got any proof of any of that?

NcDeuce wrote:


Show me facts to back that up.

That enough?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/globalissue/usforeignpolicy/iraq1980scontent.html

http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/03/sp_world_battle022703.htm

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/armIraqP2W.html

Example from the last source:




September 1980. Iraq invades Iran. The beginning of the Iraq-Iran war.

February 1982. Despite objections from Congress, President Reagan removes Iraq from its list of known terrorist countries.

December 1982. Hughes Aircraft ships 60 Defender helicopters to Iraq.

1982-1988. Defense Intelligence Agency provides detailed information for Iraq on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb damage assessments.

November 1983. A National Security Directive states that the U.S would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing its war with Iran.

November 1983. Banca Nazionale del Lavoro of Italy and its Branch in Atlanta begin to funnel $5 billion in unreported loans to Iraq. Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of the U.S. government, purchased computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other
industrial goods for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

October 1983. The Reagan Administration begins secretly allowing Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt to transfer United States weapons, including Howitzers, Huey helicopters, and bombs to Iraq. These shipments violated the Arms Export Control Act.

November 1983. George Schultz, the Secretary of State, is given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops are daily using chemical weapons against the Iranians.

December 20 1983. Donald Rumsfeld, then a civilian and now Defense Secretary, meets with Saddam Hussein to assure him of US friendship and materials support.

July 1984. CIA begins giving Iraq intelligence necessary to calibrate its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops.

January 14 1984. State Department memo acknowledges United States shipment of "dual-use" export hardware and technology. Dual use items are civilian items such as heavy trucks, armored ambulances and communications gear as well as industrial technology that can have a military application.

March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons.

May 1986. The U.S. Department of Commerce licenses 70 biological exports to Iraq between May of 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax.

May 1986. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade botulin poison to Iraq.

March 1987. President Reagan bows to the findings of the Tower Commission admitting the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages. Oliver North uses the profits from the sale to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua.

Late 1987. The Iraqi Air Force begins using chemical agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq.

February 1988. Saddam Hussein begins the "Anfal" campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq. The Iraq regime used chemical weapons against the Kurds killing over 100,000 civilians and destroying over 1,200 Kurdish villages.

April 1988. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of chemicals used in manufacture of mustard gas.

August 1988. Four major battles were fought from April to August 1988, in which the Iraqis massively and effectively used chemical weapons to defeat the Iranians. Nerve gas and blister agents such as mustard gas are used. By this time the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency is heavily involved with Saddam Hussein in battle plan assistance, intelligence gathering and post battle debriefing. In the last major battle with of the war, 65,000 Iranians are killed, many with poison gas. Use of chemical weapons in war is in violation of the Geneva accords of 1925.

August 1988. Iraq and Iran declare a cease fire.

August 1988. Five days after the cease fire Saddam Hussein sends his planes and helicopters to northern Iraq to begin massive chemical attacks against the Kurds.

September 1988. U.S. Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade anthrax and botulinum to Iraq.

September 1988. Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State: "The US-Iraqi relationship is... important to our long-term political and economic objectives."

December 1988. Dow chemical sells $1.5 million in pesticides to Iraq despite knowledge that these would be used in chemical weapons.

July 25, 1990. U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad meets with Hussein to assure him that President Bush "wanted better and deeper relations." Many believe this visit was a trap set for Hussein. A month later Hussein invaded Kuwait thinking the U.S. would not respond.

August 1990. Iraq invades Kuwait. The precursor to the Gulf War.

July 1991. The Financial Times of London reveals that a Florida chemical company had produced and shipped cyanide to Iraq during the 80's using a special CIA courier. Cyanide was used extensively against the Iranians.

August 1991. Christopher Droguol of Atlanta's branch of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is arrested for his role in supplying loans to Iraq for the purchase of military supplies. He is charged with 347 counts of felony. Droguol is found guilty, but U.S. officials plead innocent of any knowledge of his crime.

June 1992. Ted Koppel of ABC Nightline reports: "It is becoming increasingly clear that George Bush, Sr., operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into [an aggressive power]."

July 1992. "The Bush administration deliberately, not inadvertently, helped to arm Iraq by allowing U.S. technology to be shipped to Iraqi military and to Iraqi defense factories... Throughout the course of the Bush administration, U.S. and foreign firms were granted export licenses to ship U.S. technology directly to Iraqi weapons facilities despite ample evidence showing that these factories were producing weapons." Representative Henry Gonzalez, Texas, testimony before the House.

February 1994. Senator Riegle from Michigan, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, testifies before the senate revealing large U.S. shipments of dual-use biological and chemical agents to Iraq that may have been used against U.S. troops in the Gulf War and probably was the cause of the illness known as Gulf War Syndrome.

August 2002. "The use of gas [during the Iran-Iraq war] on the battle field by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern... We were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose." Colonel Walter Lang, former senior U.S. Defense Intelligence officer tells the New York Times.

This chronology of the United States' sordid involvement in the arming of Iraq can be summarized in this way: the United States used methods both legal and illegal to help build Saddam's army into the most powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel. The U.S. supplied chemical and biological agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians. The U.S. supplied the materials and technology for these weapons of mass destruction to Iraq at a time when it was known that Saddam was using this technology to kill his Kurdish citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning information to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide, mustard gas and nerve agents. The United States blocked U.N. censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States did not act alone in this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but England, France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms and technology.


The United States almost went to war against Iraq in February because of Saddam Hussein's weapons program. In his State of the Union address, President Clinton castigated Hussein for "developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them."

"You cannot defy the will of the world," the President proclaimed. "You have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again."

Most Americans listening to the President did not know that the United States supplied Iraq with much of the raw material for creating a chemical and biological warfare program. Nor did the media report that U.S. companies sold Iraq more than $1 billion worth of the components needed to build nuclear weapons and diverse types of missiles, including the infamous Scud.

When Iraq engaged in chemical and biological warfare in the 1980s, barely a peep of moral outrage could be heard from Washington, as it kept supplying Saddam with the materials he needed to build weapons.

From 1980 to 1988, Iraq and Iran waged a terrible war against each other, a war that might not have begun if President Jimmy Carter had not given the Iraqis a green light to attack Iran, in response to repeated provocations. Throughout much of the war, the United States provided military aid and intelligence information to both sides, hoping that each would inflict severe damage on the other. Noam Chomsky suggests that this strategy is a way for America to keep control of its oil supply:

"It's been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients, and, crucially, that no independent indigenous force will be permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and price."

During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq received the lion's share of American support because at the time Iran was regarded as the greater threat to U.S. interests. According to a 1994 Senate report, private American suppliers, licensed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, exported a witch's brew of biological and chemical materials to Iraq from 1985 through 1989. Among the biological materials, which often produce slow, agonizing death, were:

* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.

* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.

* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.

* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.

* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.

* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.


Also on the list: Escherichia coli (E. coli), genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA, and dozens of other pathogenic biological agents. "These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction," the Senate report stated. "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

The report noted further that U.S. exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical-warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare production facilities, and chemical-warhead filling equipment.

The exports continued to at least November 28, 1989, despite evidence that Iraq was engaging in chemical and biological warfare against Iranians and Kurds since as early as 1984.

The American company that provided the most biological materials to Iraq in the 1980s was American Type Culture Collection of Maryland and Virginia, which made seventy shipments of the anthrax-causing germ and other pathogenic agents, according to a 1996 Newsday story.

Other American companies also provided Iraq with the chemical or biological compounds, or the facilities and equipment used to create the compounds for chemical and biological warfare. Among these suppliers were the following:

* Alcolac International, a Baltimore chemical manufacturer already linked to the illegal shipment of chemicals to Iran, shipped large quantities of thiodiglycol (used to make mustard gas) as well as other chemical and biological ingredients, according to a 1989 story in The New York Times.

* Nu Kraft Mercantile Corp. of Brooklyn (affiliated with the United Steel and Strip Corporation) also supplied Iraq with huge amounts of thiodiglycol, the Times reported.

* Celery Corp., Charlotte, NC

* Matrix-Churchill Corp., Cleveland, OH (regarded as a front for the Iraqi government, according to Representative Henry Gonzalez, Democrat of Texas, who quoted U.S. intelligence documents to this effect in a 1992 speech on the House floor).


The following companies were also named as chemical and biological materials suppliers in the 1992 Senate hearings on "United States export policy toward Iraq prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait":

* Mouse Master, Lilburn, GA

* Sullaire Corp., Charlotte, NC

* Pure Aire, Charlotte, NC

* Posi Seal, Inc., N. Stonington, CT

* Union Carbide, Danbury, CT

* Evapco, Taneytown, MD

* Gorman-Rupp, Mansfield, OH


Additionally, several other companies were sued in connection with their activities providing Iraq with chemical or biological supplies: subsidiaries or branches of Fisher Controls International, Inc., St. Louis; Rhone-Poulenc, Inc., Princeton, NJ; Bechtel Group, Inc., San Francisco; and Lummus Crest, Inc., Bloomfield, NJ, which built one chemical plant in Iraq and, before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, was building an ethylene facility. Ethylene is a necessary ingredient for thiodiglycol

In 1994, a group of twenty-six veterans, suffering from what has come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome, filed a billion-dollar lawsuit in Houston against Fisher, Rhone-Poulenc, Bechtel Group, and Lummus Crest, as well as American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and six other firms, for helping Iraq to obtain or produce the compounds which the veterans blamed for their illnesses. By 1998, the number of plaintiffs has risen to more than 4,000 and the suit is still pending in Texas.

A Pentagon study in 1994 dismissed links between chemical and biological weapons and Gulf War Syndrome. Newsday later disclosed, however, that the man who headed the study, Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg, was a director of ATCC. Moreover, at the time of ATCC's shipments to Iraq, which the Commerce Department approved, the firm's CEO was a member of the Commerce Department's Technical Advisory Committee, the paper found.

A larger number of American firms supplied Iraq with the specialized computers, lasers, testing and analyzing equipment, and other instruments and hardware vital to the manufacture of nuclear weapons, missiles, and delivery systems. Computers, in particular, play a key role in nuclear weapons development. Advanced computers make it feasible to avoid carrying out nuclear test explosions, thus preserving the program's secrecy. The 1992 Senate hearings implicated the following firms:

* Kennametal, Latrobe, PA

* Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, CA

* International Computer Systems, CA, SC, and TX

* Perkins-Elmer, Norwalk, CT

* BDM Corp., McLean, VA

* Leybold Vacuum Systems, Export, PA

* Spectra Physics, Mountain View, CA

* Unisys Corp., Blue Bell, PA

* Finnigan MAT, San Jose, CA

* Scientific Atlanta, Atlanta, GA

* Spectral Data Corp., Champaign, IL

* Tektronix, Wilsonville, OR

* Veeco Instruments, Inc., Plainview, NY

* Wiltron Company, Morgan Hill, CA

The House report also singled out: TI Coating, Inc., Axel Electronics, Data General Corp., Gerber Systems, Honeywell, Inc., Digital Equipment Corp., Sackman Associates, Rockwell Collins International, Wild Magnavox Satellite Survey, Zeta Laboratories, Carl Schenck, EZ Logic Data, International Imaging Systems, Semetex Corp., and Thermo Jarrell Ash Corporation.

Some of the companies said later that they had no idea Iraq might ever put their products to military use. A spokesperson for Hewlett Packard said the company believed that the Iraqi recipient of its shipments, Saad 16, was an institution of higher learning. In fact, in 1990 The Wall Street Journal described Saad 16 as "a heavily fortified, state-of-the-art complex for aircraft construction, missile design, and, almost certainly, nuclear-weapons research."

Other corporations recognized the military potential of their goods but considered it the government's job to worry about it. "Every once in a while you kind of wonder when you sell something to a certain country," said Robert Finney, president of Electronic Associates, Inc., which supplied Saad 16 with a powerful computer that could be used for missile testing and development. "But it's not up to us to make foreign policy," Finney told The Wall Street Journal.

In 1982, the Reagan Administration took Iraq off its list of countries alleged to sponsor terrorism, making it eligible to receive high-tech items generally denied to those on the list. Conventional military sales began in December of that year. Representative Samuel Gejdenson, Democrat of Connecticut, chairman of a House subcommittee investigating "United States Exports of Sensitive Technology to Iraq," stated in 1991:

"From 1985 to 1990, the United States Government approved 771 licenses for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment with military application. [Only thirty-nine applications were rejected.] The United States spent virtually an entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted. . . . The Administration has never acknowledged that it took this course of action, nor has it explained why it did so. In reviewing documents and press accounts, and interviewing knowledgeable sources, it becomes clear that United States export-control policy was directed by U.S. foreign policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was U.S. foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Subsequently, Representative John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, investigated the Department of Energy concerning an unheeded 1989 warning about Iraq's nuclear weapons program. In 1992, he accused the DOE of punishing employees who raised the alarm and rewarding those who didn't take it seriously. One DOE scientist, interviewed by Dingell's Energy and Commerce Committee, was especially conscientious about the mission of the nuclear non-proliferation program. For his efforts, he received very little cooperation, inadequate staff, and was finally forced to quit in frustration. "It was impossible to do a good job," said William Emel. His immediate manager, who tried to get the proliferation program fully staffed, was chastened by management and removed from his position. Emel was hounded by the DOE at his new job as well.

Another Senate committee, investigating "United States export policy toward Iraq prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait," heard testimony in 1992 that Commerce Department personnel "changed information on sixty-eight licenses; that references to military end uses were deleted and the designation 'military truck' was changed. This was done on licenses having a total value of over $1 billion." Testimony made clear that the White House was "involved" in "a deliberate effort . . . to alter these documents and mislead the Congress."

American foreign-policy makers maintained a cooperative relationship with U.S. corporate interests in the region. In 1985, Marshall Wiley, former U.S. ambassador to Oman, set up the Washington-based U.S.-Iraq Business Forum, which lobbied in Washington on behalf of Iraq to promote U.S. trade with that country. Speaking of the Forum's creation, Wiley later explained, "I went to the State Department and told them what I was planning to do, and they said, 'Fine. It sounds like a good idea.' It was our policy to increase exports to Iraq."

Though the government readily approved most sales to Iraq, officials at Defense and Commerce clashed over some of them (with the State Department and the White House backing Commerce). "If an item was in dispute, my attitude was if they were readily available from other markets, I didn't see why we should deprive American markets," explained Richard Murphy in 1990. Murphy was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs from 1983 to 1989.

As it turned out, Iraq did not use any chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces in the Gulf War. But American planes bombed chemical and biological weapons storage facilities with abandon, potentially dooming tens of thousands of American soldiers to lives of prolonged and permanent agony, and an unknown number of Iraqis to a similar fate. Among the symptoms reported by the affected soldiers are memory loss, scarred lungs, chronic fatigue, severe headache, raspy voice, and passing out. The Pentagon estimates that nearly 100,000 American soldiers were exposed to sarin gas alone.

After the war, White House and Defense Department officials tried their best to deny that Gulf War Syndrome had anything to do with the bombings. The suffering of soldiers was not their overriding concern. The top concerns of the Bush and Clinton Administrations were to protect perceived U.S. interests in the Middle East, and to ensure that American corporations still had healthy balance sheets.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/31/world/main534798.shtml

http://www.sundayherald.com/31710
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,4801-511357,00.html

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm

A PBS Frontline episode, "The Arming of Iraq" (1990) detailed much of the conventional and so-called "dual-use" weapons sold to Iraq. The public learned from other sources that at least since mid-1980s the US was selling chemical and biological material for weapons to Iraq and orchestrating private sales. These sales began soon after current Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad in 1985 and met with Saddam Hussein as a private businessman on behalf of the Reagan administration. In the last major battle of the Iran-Iraq war, some 65,000 Iranians were killed, many by gas.

Investigators turned up new scandals, including the involvement of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), the giant Italian bank, and many of the very same circles of arms suppliers, covert operators, and policy makers in and out of the US government and active in those roles for years. The National Security Council, CIA and other US agencies tacitly approved about $4 billion in unreported loans to Iraq through the giant Italian bank's Atlanta branch. Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of the US government, purchased computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

However, the early reports on BNL's activities and the startling revelations that the US government astonishingly knew that BNL was financing billions of dollars of purchases illegally, were rather comical in view of later revelations regarding who was involved. US government officials didn't just know and approve, but some were employees at BNL directly or indirectly. It was Representative Henry Gonzalez (D-Texas) who relentlessly brought key information into the Congressional Record (despite stern warnings by the State Department to stop his personal investigation for the sake of "national security").

Gonzalas revealed, for example, that Brent Scowcroft served as Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates until being appointed as National Security Advisor to President Bush in January 1989. As Gonzalez reported, "Until October 4,1990, Mr. Scowcroft owned stock in approximately 40 U.S. corporations, many of which were doing busies in Iraq." Scowcroft's stock included that in Halliburton Oil, also doing business in Iraq at the time, which had also been run by current Vice President **** Cheney for a time. Recall that this year President George Bush Sr. faced suspicion of insider trading in relation to selling his stock in Halliburton. The companies that Scowcroft owned stock in, according to Gonzalez, "received more than one out of every eight U.S. export licenses for exports to Iraq. Several of the companies were also clients of Kissinger Associates while Mr. Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of that firm." Thus, Kissinger Associates helped US companies obtain US export licenses with BNL-finance so Iraq could purchase US weapons and materials for its weapons programs.

Many US business-men and officials made handsome profits. This included Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, who was an employee of BNL while BNL was simultaneously a paying client of Kissinger Associates. Gonzalez reported that Mr. Alan Stoga, a Kissinger Associates executive, met in June 1989 Mr. Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. "Many Kissinger Associates clients received US export licenses for exports to Iraq. Several were also the beneficiaries of BNL loans to Iraq," said Mr. Gonzalez. Kissinger admitted that "it is possible that somebody may have advised a client on how to get a license."

Perhaps the most bizarre revelations about the involvement of former US officials concerned a Washington-based enterprise called "Global Research" which played a middleman role in selling uniforms to Iraq. It was run by, none other than Spiro Agnew (Nixon's former VP who resigned to avoid bribery and tax evasion charges), John Mitchell (Nixon's chief of staff and Watergate organizer), and Richard Nixon himself. In the mid-1980s, more than a decade after Watergate, Nixon wrote a cozy letter to former dictator and friend Nicolae Ceausescu to close the deal. Global Research, incidentally, swindled the Iraqis, who thought they were getting US-made uniforms for desert conditions. Instead they received, and discarded, the winter uniforms from Romania.

By late 1992, the sales of chemical and biological weapons were revealed. Congressional Records of Senator Riegle's investigation of the Gulf War Syndrome show that that the US government approved sales of large varieties of chemical and biological materials to Iraq. These included anthrax, components of mustard gas, botulinum toxins (which causes paralysis of the muscles involving swallowing and is often fatal), histoplasma capsulatum (which may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the liver and spleen, anemia, acute inflammatory skin disease marked by tender red nodules), and a host of other nasty chemicals materials.

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

There are still noble people willing to put that uniform on and defend the freedom of total strangers.
Yep the people that fight are noble but are their masters intentions noble. :(

[HELEX]

This for example is a good one from the sources!!! :roll:


March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons.

[Sleeping Sun]

There are still noble people willing to put that uniform on and defend the freedom of total strangers.
Yep the people that fight are noble but are their masters intentions noble. :(

EXACTLY!

[NcDeuce]

Your main source which you illustrated is http://www.ratical.org

Another source is a newspaper.

You have a tough time finding hard-facts/opinions, eh?

[ibstolidude]

This for example is a good one from the sources!!! :roll:


March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons.
finding something that someone posted on the internet is not a source. I can find a site that tells you Elvis is alive and living with Earhart at a secret location with their pet, the Loch Ness monster.

Anyone could make **** up and post it.

That cooperativeresearch site is Terrible about pulling out quotes - I looked at the pages & the use of some quotes to suit their needs, then followed them to the source and some had been completely taen our of context or came from an "unkown officer" or an "unknown agency memeber" -

[HELEX]

@NcDeuce

So you dont believe HISTORICAL FACTS like this?


"March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons."

If you do not, write an Email and ASK the UN itself!

http://www.un.org/english/


http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/handshake300.jpg

[NcDeuce]

There are still noble people willing to put that uniform on and defend the freedom of total strangers.
Yep the people that fight are noble but are their masters intentions noble. :(

EXACTLY!

Masters?

What's with the BDSM ******ity connotation?

[HELEX]

@NcDeuce

Here is the Email:

United Nations

The Secretariat of the Committee on Information /
Department of Public Information may be contacted at:

coi@un.org

Alternatively you can ask at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ they cant lie in this case....!

There are thousands of tons of evidence, and it is not faked like the american against Iraq rofl

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

There are still noble people willing to put that uniform on and defend the freedom of total strangers.
Yep the people that fight are noble but are their masters intentions noble. :(

EXACTLY!

Masters?

What's with the BDSM ******ity connotation?
Bah you know what ah mean "master" ie: person having control.
<Pulls off gimp mask>
Ah thats better.

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

"March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/handshake300.jpg
Your right enough HELEX they gave Saddam a pass.

[Romulus]

March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons.

Mind telling us the resolution number? I just can't seem to find this on the UN site anywhere.

[ibstolidude]

@NcDeuce
So you dont believe HISTORICAL FACTS like this?
"March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons."

If you do not, write an Email and ASK the UN itself!

Your history fails you.

THe resolution that condemned Iraqs use of chemical agents was in 1988 UNSC res 620

UNSC res 582 (Feb 86)
did not condemn any attacks or use of bio/chem.
It did however state that 1. Deplores the initial acts which gave rise to the conflict
between Iran and Iraq and deplores the continuation of the conflict
which America did not agree with.

The resolution only noted that having observed for 6 years ... both parties resolve to nonviolent means.. civilian death toll....& noting both parties agreed to the Geneva on 17 June 1925, and that they deplore the escalation of conflict especially (lots of specifics) and in particular the case of bio/chem weapons.

Choosing ones vote and/or to abstain based on particulars of the UN is not uncommon. On the most recent vote at the UN to condemn Isreal over the Yassin killings I do believe the US, Britain, Germany and Romania all sought an amendment that would have condemned "atrocities" against Israelis - The US voted NO and the other 3 abstained as Algeria refused to ammend their proposed resolution. The wording is everything.

[Truthsayer]

Anything not posted from the website http://www.fascistamericans.gov/bushcheney/ is ofcourse all lies.

Damn lies.

[usa320]

And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war

What a ****ing wanker.

LEts be friends with Al Qaeda...

YEAH WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER...or if john kerry gets elected...

BUSH FOR 4 MORE YEARS!!!

[ibstolidude]

March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons.

Mind telling us the resolution number? I just can't seem to find this on the UN site anywhere.
The only 2 UN security Council resolution pertaining to Iraq-Iran were 588 and 582 - only 582 could be to what he refers, unfortuantely it does not condemn the use of wmds by Iraq that is resolution 620.

[HELEX]

Is that so difficult?

There are only resolutins that passed! It was changed because of the american pressure.


UNSC Resolution 582
Adopted by the Security Council at its 2666th meeting on 24 February 1986


You know the difference between blocked and ADOPTED?


@Romulus

There was no Internet access for public in 1986, so it isnt on the website.

[Romulus]

They have no archive? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Even my local hick paper has an archive dating back 50 some odd years.

[HELEX]

@Romulus

They produce tons of Paperwork..., they havent digitalized their archive until now. But they have one.

If you ask them kindley, they will answer. I posted the Email before.

Remember, that is OUR organisation. The organisation of the people of this Planet. And not the Puppet of some Billionaires like the US-Goverment.

[AK-Lover]

Hopefully Bush doesn't get elected all we would need is another 4 years of the united states rampaging through the world invading,pillaging and killng. ;) :lol:

[Romulus]

Hopefully Bush doesn't get elected

Hopes all ya got. He WILL be in for another 4 years.

[AK-Lover]

WHAT? rofl
No way! Kerry ALL the Way! hey that rhymes! rofl woot

[Fioraon]

Kerry doesn't have a chance in hell, we are gonna be with Bush for another four.

[WARPIG]

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.
~Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge. ~Daniel J. Boorstin (1914 - )
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
~Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.
~Dale Carnegie
In the spider-web of facts, many a truth is strangled.
~Paul Eldridge

Just some quotes that came to mind reading this thread and the speach that entitles it.

Let's play the "fact" game. The most popular communcation device used by terrorists is the Nokia phone. As that is a Finnish product, this must surely mean that Finland supports terrorism.
Pretty ridiculous, huh? I used the same method to link that garbage together as much of this thread uses "facts" out of context to piss on the US government. No sense of reality seems to exist in here. Is it more believable that the USA is some evil empire bent on controlling the world through guile and deception? Or that in an attempt to live up to our responsibility as a world power we sometimes make poor judgement, mis-inform, mistake, err, and even have pockets of corruption?

Chauncey.. if you continue to focus on the little factoids, trivia,and details, your gonna miss the big picture. So far you have only made meager attempts to drag US foreign policy and US soldiers through the mud. As easy as it should be to poke holes in US foreign policy, you have done little. Have you ever tried to make a contribution? Do you have a solution? Funny how most of the complainers in this thread failed to make a showing when I invited them here. http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=199447&highlight=#199447
Notice how this conversation is made from several points of view, no one rants about providing documentation to support thier view. You see this is because most of them have the ability to speak from intelligence, can form thought and opinion without resorting to insult or the use of smileys, and also try and offer solutions or contribution. Do you know why the complaints didn't show up? Because it would take intelligence and thought to exist in that thread.